"We are our choices"

The night was in full bloom as she stood at the glass door of her apartment looking at the first snowfall of the season. The city shone in all different neon colours as the snow silently covered the world in its pristine white blanket. Ever since a flaming arrow pierced her soul giving her a blazing pain she would stand there every night waiting for one particular snowflake which would cure her pain forever. Each day she waited for the snowfall and for that one snowflake. 

As she was watching the falling snow, she started noticing patterns. The snowflakes were telling the story of her life in letters and symbols. She went outside with outstretched arms. Many a flake fell on her open hands but didn't fit in. Soon two flakes of different shape fell into her each hand. She clinched her fist as other snowflakes tried to enter inside her fist but failed and fell flat on the ground becoming a part of the white snow blanket. 

She was now in a dilemma as to which one would be a cure for her soul. She sat in the balcony of her house looking at the two snowflakes peeping from her fists. One had the shape of a sparkling mind and the other that of a golden heart. In one familiarity had already started breeding contempt while in the other familiarity led to an ever increasing affection. Despite the obvious signs she was getting drawn towards the mind even as the heart never lost hope and swore to cure her soul forever with its loving touch. Just then the mind began melting. She instinctively clinched her fist tighter not wanting to let go of it. But then realizing that she could not stop it slipping past her fingers no matter how hard she tried she opened her fist to let it go and saw a red stone in her hand. It forgot its heart, she thought. She looked at the red stone-heart wistfully. A puddle of water was formed on the ground and had already started freezing. She kept the stone right in the middle of the puddle before it froze, giving it back to its owner. 

She looked at the other fist with a smile creeping on her lips and gently kissed it. She entered her warm apartment that bathed in soothing yellow lights to get cured of the pain as Norah Jones sang in her soulful voice of not missing someone she no longer had..

Never rise in my land again oh Moon!

Every night she would come and whisper in my ears, trying to wake me up, touching me with her cold frightened hands. She would walk anxiously in my room trying to enter my dreams while i dreamt of blue birds and pink stars, of losing only to find again, of hands clasping together, of never letting go. Fantastic dreams of the kind that trouble the nerves when awake. But the mind, determined as it was to have pleasure (however transient and ephemeral), blocked all the entrances. 

One day I wake up hearing faint sobbings at the far end of my room. And there I see her looking at me with beseeching eyes begging me to stop the dreams before they conquer the truth and condemn me to a life of illusion, of smoke and mirrors. She told me she had already heard the banshee cry. That the death of the heart was just a matter of time. The dreams were playing games, mind was under their control. The main conspirator , however, was the moon she said. She had seen the dreams in the arms of the moon the night when it was just a sliver, like a broken silver bangle hanging in the sky. The night when it is at its sly best. That ever-changing whimsical enigma who is the creator of all illusions. A part of me will inevitably die she said but asked me to retreat before the whole of me gets consumed in this eternal endless game.

I listen to her in bewilderment and uncertainty. Dreams are just a reflection (though distorted) of reality someone had once said. There ought to be some truth in what I dreamt. Never before had dreams brought such happiness to me. Happiness is all that I want. She cautioned me against this happiness which was only a mirage, a deception. That it would only make me miserable once the reality hits me hard on my face and makes me fall flat on the hard, cold floor of dead dreams and broken mirrors. Then this happiness will turn into the serpent of misery and despair that will tightly wrap itself around me for as long as I breathe.

Since then I have stopped dreaming. No more do those fingers wipe the tears rolling down my cheek, no more does that smiling face walk up to me to brighten my days, no longer do the hands tightly clasp around each other swearing never to let go. I have spent innumerable sleepless nights looking at the moon as it would change its shape at a dizzying pace. I have seen it weaving dreams, loving dreams who become his slaves. I look at it with questioning eyes while it gives me a beatific smile. The master of illusions, the evil sorcerer continues night after night casting its spell on the world giving people what they want - transient, unreal, sinister "happiness".